Howl
by black.k.kat
Summary: Drabble. Inuzuri, 78th District of the Rukongai, is dry, featureless, and hot, filled with thieves and murderers. It's probably just about the closest someone can get to Purgatory while still keeping to Soul Society. Fitting, Obito thinks wryly, that this is where he woke up.
Inuzuri, 78th District of the Rukongai, is dry, featureless, and hot, filled with thieves and murderers. It's probably just about the closest someone can get to Purgatory while still keeping to Soul Society.

Fitting, Obito thinks wryly, that this is where he woke up.

It was a surprise, though maybe it shouldn't have been. If anyone has ever deserved to land themselves in some sort of hell, it's Obito, and he isn't about to fool himself into thinking otherwise. He'd followed Rin towards the Pure Land, but he's pretty sure it wasn't an accident that he didn't make it all the way there. All the things he did in Rin's name—well. She was always a staunch advocate of paying for one's mistakes. That Obito made all of his by telling himself it was for her would just have made her more insistent.

He sighs a little, sinking back against the beam that supports the sagging roof. The house is abandoned, as far as he can tell—one of many left to rot, because the people here don't give a damn about anything unless they can steal it. A bit like some of the towns Obito visited where missing-nin would congregate, but…rougher. Grimmer, harsher, with an edge of hopelessness that even the shinobi world never boasted. For missing-in, at least, there was always the option of moving on. These people don't have that. All they can do is die, and hope they'll reincarnate.

It's the habit of nearly twenty years on the run that has Obito keeping a low profile, never interacting with Inuzuri's residents unless he has to. No one's looking too closely anyways, and Obito wants to keep it that way. All of his information he's gotten by listening, slipping through shadows or staying still and wary. There are no other shinobi here, not that he's seen, and the one person who caught sight of his Sharingan eyes had no reaction to them. Remembering the last fight with Kaguya, Obito assumes he's somewhere entirely different than the Elemental countries—another dimension, maybe, because the handful of souls he's heard speaking about their time alive sounds very, very different from the world he's used to.

The black-clad soldiers he's seen pass through once or twice, though they never linger—shinigami, someone whispered in his hearing, and it makes him want to laugh. They're dead; what more is there to fear in souls just like them?

But maybe not. Maybe it's different. Obito thinks of ANBU and supposes there are parallels to be drawn. Still, they're the authority here, as much as there is one, and Obito has had an instinctive avoidance of all authority drilled into him. No one here knows the Sharingan, or uses chakra—reiatsu, that's what they use instead, and from what Obito can gather it's a little different—or recognizes him as the man who almost destroyed the entire world, but Obito isn't about to risk anything more. Death isn't quite the release he was hoping for, but this quiet anonymity is enough.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of red. Startled, he turns, automatically snatching up a knife, and a little boy with long red hair goes scrambling back towards the empty house.

"I didn't steal nothin'!" he protests, swift and scared. "I didn't! I just thought this place was empty an' there might be food!"

Obito pauses, regarding the child for a long moment. Then, with a faint sigh—because he remembers being hungry, when there weren't enough missions to pay for groceries, remembers the desperation of an empty stomach and uncertain future—he crouches down beside his bag, sliding the knife away and pulling out half a loaf of bread instead. He won't die skipping the next few meals, but the kid is scrawny enough already.

"Here," he says, tossing it right into the redhead's lap. "Now go on, scram. I've got nothing else."

"You're—you're _giving_ it to me?" the boy asks incredulously, even as his fingers close desperately around the dry hunk.

Obito raises a sardonic brow at him. "Well, if you don't want it, I can always take it back," he says, and even as the last syllable leaves his mouth the brat scrambles to his feet, still clutching the bread, and bolts. Obito watches him go, torn between wry amusement and resigned sadness, and takes a seat on the edge of the porch again. Well. Maybe that can be his good deed for the week.

* * *

He comes out the next morning, bleary-eyed and clutching a cup of watery herbal tea that's the best he can get, and there's an all-too-familiar figure hovering at the edge of the porch. Obito meets stubborn russet-red eyes, raising a silent brow in question, and the stray brat tips his chin up, squares his shoulders, and immediately dips forward into a low bow. "Thanks for the food!" he says, too loud, too bright for this dry, barren place. "I'm Abarai Renji!"

There's a distinctive sinking feeling in Obito's stomach. "And I'm not a nanny. I thought I told you to get lost. Or at least heavily implied it."

Renji looks like a kicked puppy—not the cute kind, but the kind with teeth, ready to turn and bite if you get too close. "Yeah," he says, on the verge of mulish. "But Rukia said she'd kick me if I didn't say thank you, and you're not as scary as she is, even if you're taller."

Obito blinks. Opens his mouth, closes it, blinks again, because—well. That's certainly something he's never heard before. "You're welcome," is what he finally settles on. "Uchiha Obito."

That gets him a smile, bordering on a grin, and Renji bounces over and takes a seat on the edge of the deck. "How'd you get all those scars? Was it painful?"

Oh no. Obito _definitely_ has a bad feeling about this. He's not in the market for a stray, and he's never wanted a puppy.

Well. It doesn't look like this one is giving him a choice. At least, Obito thinks, it's a starved, half-wild puppy with a decent set of teeth. He's not the type to stand the cute kind.

"Yeah, kid," he says, resigned. "A whole hell of a lot."

Renji leans closer, eyes wide and interested, clearly hoping for the story.

So much for quiet anonymity.

Still, Obito thinks, heaving a mostly-theatrical sigh and settling on the porch. This has the potential to be interesting, and he's always been a fan of interesting.


End file.
